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Protection against ex post facto law

An ex post facto law (Latin for "from after the
action" or "after the facts") is a law that retroactively
changes the legal consequences (or status) of actions that were committed, or
relationships that existed, before the enactment of the law. In criminal law,
it may criminalize actions that were legal when committed; it may aggravate a
crime by bringing it into a more severe category than it was in when it was
committed; it may change the punishment prescribed for a crime, as by adding
new penalties or extending sentences; or it may alter the rules of evidence in
order to make conviction for a crime likelier than it would have been when the
deed was committed.

Clause (1) of Article 20 of the Constitution of India says
that “no person shall be convicted of any offence except for violation of a law
in force at the time of the commission of the act charged as an offence, nor be
subjected to a penalty greater than that which might have been inflicted under
the law in force at the time of the commission of the offence. Article 11, para
2 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948 provides freedom from
ex-post facto laws.

An ex post facto law is a law which imposes penalties
retrospectively, i.e., on acts already done and increases the penalty for such
acts. The American Constitution also contains a similar provision prohibiting
ex post facto laws both by the Central and the State Legislatures. If an act is
not an offence at the date of its commission it cannot be an offence at the
date subsequent to its commission. The protection afforded by clause (1) of
Article 20 of the Indian Constitution is available only against conviction or
sentence for a criminal offence under ex post facto law and not against the
trial.

The protection of clause (1) of Article 20 cannot be claimed in case of
preventive detention, or demanding security from a person. The prohibition is
just for conviction and sentence only and not for prosecution and trial under a
retrospective law. So, a trial under a procedure different from what it was at
the time of the commission of the offence or by a special court constituted
after the commission of the offence cannot ipso facto be held unconstitutional.
The second part of clause (1) protects a person from ‘a penalty greater than
that which he might have been subjected to at the time of the commission of the
offence.’

In Kedar Nath v. State
of West Bengal [AIR 1953 SC 404], the accused committed an offence in 1947,
which under the Act then in force was punishable by imprisonment or fine or
both. The Act was amended in 1949 which enhanced the punishment for the same
offence by an additional fine equivalent to the amount of money procured by the
accused through the offence.

The Supreme Court held that the enhanced
punishment could not be applicable to the act committed by the accused in 1947
and hence, set aside the additional fine imposed by the amended Act. In the
criminal trial, the accused can take advantage of the beneficial provisions of
the ex-post facto law. The rule of beneficial construction requires that ex
post facto law should be applied to mitigate the rigorous (reducing the
sentence) of the previous law on the same subject. Such a law is not affected
by Article 20(1) of the Constitution.